Most of the electricity in an LED becomes heat rather than light (about 70% heat and 30% light).

If this heat is not removed, the LEDs run at high temperatures, which not only lowers their efficiency, but also makes the LED less reliable. Thus, thermal management of LEDs is crucial for HTA’s research and development. It is highly necessary to keep the junction temperature below 120°C to run the LEDs for maximum lifetime.

In order to maintain a low junction temperature to keep good performance of an LED, HTA adopts three means of heat transfer -- conduction, convection, and radiation, to remove heat from LEDs. LEDs are often mounted on metal-core printed circuit boards (MCPCB), which will be attached to a heat sink. Heat conducted through the MCPCB and heat sink is dissipated by convection and radiation. In the package design, the surface flatness and quality of each component, applied mounting pressure, contact area, the type of interface material and its thickness are all important parameters to thermal resistance design.

To further optimize the thermal performance, HTA R&D team select materials with high thermal conductivity (aluminum die-cast, thermal plastic and such alike), design luminaire in shapes with large surface area, use thermal conductive adhesive. Besides, surface finish, mounting method, thermal conductive glue or sticky tape would also be taken into consideration during new products development, to realise the most optimised heat management solution.